The Singularity Race

By Mark de Castrique

The Singularity—the looming point of no return when Artificial Intelligence surpasses human cognitive abilities, with consequences no one can foresee, and only a handful of people understand.

Rusty Mullins, ex-Secret Service, has never heard of the Singularity. He only knows that after the deadly challenges of his last job for security firm Prime Protection, he swore he'd stop risking his life on assignments. Then his good friend Ted Lewison, head of Prime Protection, asks him back for a routine mission guarding Chinese scientist Dr. Lisa Li and her seven-year-old nephew, Peter, and Mullins agrees.

The conference on AI bringing Dr. Li to Washington, DC, is barely under way when a team of assassins storms the room. The carnage is great but Mullins saves Dr. Li and Peter while the attackers kill the two other AI experts, along with Lewison.

His widow begs Mullins to uncover the power behind the group claiming credit for the assassinations. Is "Double H" homegrown, or part of a larger international conspiracy? Enter eccentric tech billionaire Robert Brentwood who requests Mullins continue to guard Dr. Li and Peter. Brentwood seeks the Singularity and believes Dr. Li holds the key. Mullins agrees in exchange for running his investigation through Brentwood's extraordinary computer resources.

The quest leads him on an unexpected path from Naval Intelligence and the Oval Office to a secret research lab in the North Carolina mountains. No one can be trusted—the race for the Singularity is a global winner-takes-all contest.

Yet, terrifyingly, a machine with capacity exceeding human intelligence can outstrip all controls while possessing no moral or ethical brakes. As the AI stakeholders go all out, Mullins must face his own singularity—the point of no return—when not just he but his family and Dr. Li's will become casualties in what amounts to war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781464206009

Mark de Castrique

Mark de Castrique grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina where many of his novels are set. He's a veteran of the television and film production industry, has served as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte teaching The American Mystery, and he's a frequent speaker and workshop leader. He and his wife, Linda, live in Charlotte, North Carolina. www.markdecastrique.com

Reviews for The Singularity Race

[cathyskye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mark de Castrique's standalone thriller is fast-paced and absorbing, filled with hair-trigger action and cross after double cross. With the rise of computers, information warfare is "where it's at," and the need for a super computer with moral parameters is a must. I grew up on Sci-Fi movies about computers taking over the world and making Orwell's 1984 look like a walk in the park, so I definitely found The Singularity Race to be an interesting read. Normally I am a character-driven reader, and de Castrique's characters do not disappoint-- from Rusty Mullins to Dr. Li and Peter Wang to Brentwood the eccentric billionaire; however, I do think the story could have used a bit more about the computer that was being built. It stayed a bit too much in the shadows when it could've given the book more substance. If you like your mysteries and thrillers with a bit of science fiction, I think you should give The Singularity Race a try.